How much are your bills?

[TheBillsEnquirer]

With everything increasing lots, I’m suddenly aware I have no idea if my bills are reasonable or if I’m spending money where I “shouldn’t” be. Would anyone be up for comparing outgoings?

I’m including the ££ and what % of our post tax income this is. I think both would be useful?

We are a family of 5 living on the south coast.

Mortgage £1350 (27%)
Food £600 (12%)
Childcare £500 (10%)
Utilities £265 (5%)
Council Tax £261 (5%)
Car Finance £250 (5%)
Fuel £150 (3%)
Pet Insurance £67
Water £55
Internet £55
Dog Walker £52
Life Insurance £42*
Home Insurance £40
Swimming Lessons £34
Haircuts £25
Phone £50
Phone £26
Milk £19
Spotify £17
Netflix £16
Subscription £3
Total £3877 (78%)

And we save £250 as standard.
*woefully inadequate and I need to shop around to increase coverage

And the really big problem I’m having is that we should have around £875 left at the end of every month and we just don’t. Where the fuckity fuck is this money going. Need to trawl through some bank statements to work out; on first glance it appears to be a fiver here for a kids birthday party present or a fiver there for the ice cream man. No way I’ve got almost 200 fiver transactions a month though.

Single so prob not helpful!
Min wage income per month

£130 council tax
£10 car tax
£385 mortgage
£170 management fee for apartment
£75 gas/electric
£35 car insurance
£19 denplan
£13 TV license
£10 contents insurance
£22 water
£80 credit card repayment
£36 broadband
£70 old debt repayment
£30 next
£10 cat insurance
£39 peloton
£240 food

The small amount left gets sucked up by cat food, e cig liquid, petrol, once a year haircut and the odd coffee

Ours very similar, just a bit more on clubs for the DC but don’t have dog walker. The rest goes on household and car repairs and maintenance, birthdays, Christmas, other events/presents, holidays, meals and days out, bikes, clothes, shoes etc. Can imagine that’s where your other £875 goes, they do add up to more than you think!

P.s. our holidays, days out etc are not anything extravagant, we’re taking about maybe 2 mini breaks (not Centerparcs or anything like that!) and a week in caravan and most days out are parks etc and just paying for parking and ice cream

Family of 3 (adults)...

Mortgage £950
Food £700
Childcare £0
Utilities £210
Council Tax £155
Car Finance £0
Fuel £100
Pet Insurance £80
Water £55
Internet £55
Dog Walker £105
Life Insurance £18
Home Insurance £40
Swimming Lessons £0
Haircuts £0
Phones x 3 £75
Phone £0
Milk £0
Spotify £0
Netflix £11
Prime £10
Apple TV £6

Around €1500 a month plus another €300 a month that goes into a separate account for annual expenses like car insurance and professional fees. Living in Ireland so don't have to pay for council tax or water charges. Bills account for 26% of take home pay.

Mortgage 515
Groceries 550
Petrol 90
Netflix 9
Phones 20
Specsavers 13
Electric 100
Gas 50
Life Insurance 34
YouTube Premium 12
Dog charity 10
Amazon Prime 10.5
Medication 80
Google Storage 4
Annual expenses account 300

posting my bills isn’t going to help you, but we do have a budget for everything (Food, holidays, gifts, charitable donations, clothes…) and all the money dh and I spend is recorded in Microsoft money (no longer available, but no doubt similar programs are) and in the reports section we can see overspends, actual against budget etc. It will take time to set up, but you can see exactly where your money is going, which categories have increased since last year and once you have some decent figures you can make your budget for the following year more realistic.

Food £600
Fuel £150 approx
Childcare £80
All other bills £2050

2 adults and 1 child

All other bills are £2150 sorry

All bills £1580
Food £500 but sometimes go over
Fuel £100ish

You're missing loads of categories. These may be things that you pay annually rather than monthly but they must be getting paid somewhere?

Car tax
Car insurance
MOT and other maintenance costs/service
Other travel that isn't driving - do you ever get the bus/train/a taxi anywhere?
Clothes and shoes especially for kids can add up to a lot, including uniforms
Costs for any school trips/events
Holidays
Days out/family activities, including extra costs during school holidays
Birthday and christmas gifts, tickets to seasonal events stuff like Santa's grotto etc, hosting your own kids' birthday parties
'Leisure' spends e.g. going out to cafes, getting takeaways, restaurants or other trips out either as a family or with friends
Kids pocket money
And probably several more I haven't thought of.

It sounds like your budget consists of "bills", "food and fuel", "savings" and then everything else which is not granular enough to understand where your money is going. Mine is organised into
Direct debits
Savings
Monthly spends which comprises food and fuel and much of what is listed above, but in individual sub-categories
Sinking funds to pay annual costs which are currently: summer holiday; house insurance; car insurance, tax, MOT and service; Christmas; birthday gifts and parties.

As PP says, you are missing out a lot of annual expenses and not allowing for funds for things that come up ‘as and when’ but will happen sooner or later so you probably spend regularly on these things (washing machine repair, tyres need replacing, hire of carpet cleaner, dentist bill etc). I have funds put aside for these each month.

You are spending a lot on internet, phones and tv/music subscriptions compared to me. I spend £45, you spend £164 and you forgot the TV licence which would take it up to over £177 a month. OK, there’s only me so you need a second mobile but I would put SIM only for about £5 a month and an old model refurbished handset every three or four years, so £100 a month saving is possible if you just use the free services for music and tv and don’t buy the latest new phones.

You seem to be doing well on food at £619 (including milk) for 5 of you and a dog. I suspect in reality there are top up shops not getting counted. If that’s wha5 you are really spending, we’ll done. However, no mention of school lunches, do you pay for those too?

Clothes, family days out, birthdays, vets bills, dentist… all costs I know we definitely have which come out of the £875. All so variable that I struggle to keep track every month but maybe having a fund for these would be a better solution. I could probably take a pretty good stab at what we spend annually and set aside money each month. Thanks, that’s a really good idea.

The only annual things I can think of is car tax, insurance, my kids birthdays and TV license. All come out on different months so just taken from whatever disposal income that month. I think setting aside money monthly for these would be useful too. Still spending the same aren’t we.

No school costs (all three kids preschool age). No top up shops, I’m really strict about those! We do get a takeaway once a month (maybe less?) so that’s something I can track.

I can’t get the internet down, which kills me. There’s just no other options where I live (quite rural).

I’m quite happy with our phone bills (fuck knows why DH needs a £50 month phone but I’m happy we should have enough disposable income that he can do so!). I went through a phase of buying a cheap handset and it was a false economy because they’re crap and stop working and need replacing. I’m happy spending £26 on an mid range model.

Shame Microsoft Money isn’t around anymore. I couldn’t find a good tracker so I end up doing it in excel, which works enough, but as PP have pointed out I need to be more granular. Our bills have gone up so much in the last year that I think it’s needed now where it probably wasn’t before.

We are a family of 4 living on Ireland

Mortgage none
Food -£120 per week
Childcare -£52 per week (that’s for 2dc for 10 hours Afterschool) it’s subsidised
electricity -69 per month
Council Tax -none
Car Finance -none
Fuel -90 per week for both cars
Pet Insurance -none
Water- none
Internet/tv/dh’s phone - 90 per month
Life Insurance 80 per month
Home Insurance 400 annually
Swimming Lessons - they have finished this as they can both swim now but it was 9 a lesson
Haircuts- not something we account for monthly
Phone £30
apple music 9.99
Disney 9.99

It's all the additional things that add up: birthdays, new clothe/shoes for kids, additional bills eg scout camp, school trips. Unaccounted for costs are budget killers.

We are the same and should have similar "extra" a month but rarely do!

I a going to start divvying up more in Monzo pot and work from there I think

3 adults, 3 kids at school

£360 interest only mortgage
Food £400
Childcare £50 childcare tax deduction
Utilities less than £50pm
Council tax £270
Cars owned outright
Fuel £400 pm
No.pets
Internet £60
Life insurance £60
Swimming £38
Haircuts £25
Phones £40

Haircuts we string out or I forgo them as needed

I put £150 a month aside for car insurance and service

@Bovrilla
Unaccounted for costs are budget killers.

Its this isn’t it. Need to go on a frenzy making sure as much as possible can be accounted for. We live a pretty predictable life… should be able to!

I recommend Monzo pots if you can switch to them. Even if you don’t do your main banking with them, you can use them for sinking funds. Alternatively you can use savings pots with Chase and get over 2% interest!

I’ll do a google on monzo pots, I’ve never heard of. Thanks!! I’m getting the NHS back pay money in next weeks pay check so it’s a perfect time to initially set up all these little funds (it’s always hard to try and find the money to get ahead of spending, that’s half the issue!)

I also use Monzo pots and can recommend them.
I put aside monthly for: gas/elec bills (so when they come quarterly, I have money to pay them), holidays, hairdresser, car servicing, baby stuff, rainy day fund.
I couldn't live without budgeting in Excel- you will see where your money goes exactly. It's quite surprising how many unbudgeted for items we pay each month. There's always something.

Useful task to do and reading these threads we are clearly spending too much. I don’t know how utilities are so cheap for some. Our electricity is £200 and that’s not including heating… aaargh

mortgage: £965
Food/drink/cleaning: £850
car insurances x2: £100
life insurances x2: £80
electricity:£200
oil for heating/logs: £150
phones x2: £60
amazon prime: £9
netflix: £12
internet: £50
rates: £165 per month(for 10 months)
icloud: £6.99
Leisure Centre family membership: £50
car fuel:£300(conservative)
swimming lessons/football: £50

birthdays and the unexpected expenses like mechanics and dentists are the killer.

Yes @Ballymac, we definitely spend more on birthdays and Christmas than I would have guessed (even though we aren't particularly profligate). So adding these up, and putting the equivalent amount of money aside every month can be helpful.

I've got a relatively reasonable annual budget worked out in Excel, but I know that some other people prefer to have a weekly budget with separate pots etc.